THE WORLD’S PRESS had their attention
diverted from the glitter of China’s Olympic games as the dispute
between Russia and the Caucasian republic of Georgia over the small
breakaway region of South Ossetia suddenly escalated into a nightmarish
military conflict. This dramatic conflict will have profound consequences,
in the Caucasus and internationally. ROB JONES writes from Moscow.

THE WELL-KNOWN green campaigner and Guardian
columnist George Monbiot has shocked green-lefts and radical
environmentalists by coming out in support of nuclear power. In an
article in The Guardian on August 5 he wrote in relation to global
warming: "I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether
or not the answer is nuclear. Let it happen…" PETE DICKENSON assesses
this shift in position.